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Tuesday, April 21, 2015

This post is a copy of what I wrote to Eval2015@nysed.gov as teachers were invited to comment on possible changes to the NYS teacher evaluation system. There has been a lot of controversy over what role, if any, standardized tests should play in teacher evaluation. I feel that there is a role for tests, but not for standardized tests.

Why standardized tests are not an appropriate way to measure growth and some ideas for tests that may be more appropriate

Clearly there needs to be a way to assess the success of teachers.
The purpose of the tests and the diversity of the students in any
teacher's classroom are just two reasons why standardized tests are not
the right assessment tool. This doesn't mean that
there are not any available tests that could measure student progress
in a meaningful way.
Assessment of teaching and learning is not the mission of
standardized tests. A "good" standardized test produces a clear "bell
curve," the statistical spread of scores that makes it possible to
divide the results in stanine scales (with a mean of 5 and
a standard deviation of 2). If too many students answer a question
correctly it may be that teaching is interfering with the measurement,
so that question is "bad" and will probably be thrown out. This leads
to tests involving talking pineapples, races for
riding lawn mowers, and other content that is not taught in many
schools. Maintaining the standardized bell curve means that something
else must be measured through the tests other than what might interfere
with the test by actually being taught.
Not every student in a given class is an appropriate candidate for
one particular grade level of standardized test. Students who begin the
year performing several grade levels below or above the grade level
measured with a particular test will not produce
meaningful results. Special education teachers can have the experience
of making the breakthrough in teaching a child to read and seeing their
test scores plunge from scores indicating random guessing to reading
with incomplete comprehension and thus getting
all the answers wrong. Teachers with classes filled with gifted
students may have an entire class that scored between the 95-99
percentile. How can they produce "gains" in standardized testing
scores?
It seems clear that trying to measure student growth through
standardized tests is doomed to fail. Standardized tests make the
assumption that half of our students must be below average, and the same
percentage each year are doomed to failure. Standardized
tests are just not the right tools to measure educational progress.
There may be other more open ended tests that could perhaps give
more meaningful information. There are reading tests, some even
available online, that measure a students reading ability and
comprehension on an open ended scale. It seems more than possible
that similar math assessments must exist. A student that made more
than one grade level progress in the course of one year could be
acknowledged as having made "gains." For social studies and science
much of what should be measured is understanding of the
facts in a particular curriculum. This is a case where the adage that
"tests drive the curriculum" is not such a bad thing. If an agreement
could be reached as to what topics and information must be covered at a
particular grade level, then tests could be
devised to measure students mastery of those topics. These must not be
standardized tests on secret topics. Instead they should be tests that
measure whether students have learned a specific topic. It must be
acceptable for more than half of the students
to succeed.

Who should consider reading levels when selecting books? You may select more than one answer

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About Me

I am the librarian at a "small" (500 students) school in New York City. Certified as both a librarian and a reading specialist, I particularly enjoy watching children grow as readers and thinkers over the span of their elementary school years. I am passionate about literature for children and appreciate the artists whose words and pictures enrich my life. However I should never be allowed in a book store with my check book or a credit card!